Accelerated Network Technologies Research Group

ANT@FIT research group was formed in September 2009 by group
of researches ad PhD students at Faculty of Information Technology, Brno
University of Technology. The research group deals with acceleration of time
critical operations, which are used in devices for network infrastructure or
devices for network monitoring and security. Network traffic processing speed
is crucial in most of the network devices, because any packet drop can lead to
lower quality of network services, affect precise monitoring or disallow
intrusion detection and prevention. Nowadays solutions are either expensive or
provide only limited performance. Therefore research group focuses on novel
algorithms and architectures, which allow construction of devices and
applications with higher throughput at lower price. We use standard processors,
MultiCORES and FPGA technology and concentrate on packet header analysis and
extraction, classification of packets, longest prefix match, pattern matching
and flow CACHE management.

The research group also deals with design of devices and
systems for network infrastructure, security and monitoring. In this area, we
cooperate mainly with CESNET and Liberouter project and focus on system for
high speed networks based on computer and acceleration cards, but we also
design small size embedded systems with low power consumption and price.

Principal researcher of the team is Jan Korenek, who is a
researcher at Brno University of Technology since 2003, leader
of hardware design group at Liberouter project since 2004 and is one of the
founders of successful spin-off INVEA-TECH. The team members have substantial
experience in the network field, which was obtained by working on a number of
European projects (including 6NET (IST-2001-32603), SCAMPI (IST-2001-32404),
GEANT2 (No. 511082)) and on a number of
locally funded projects (CESNET (MSM6383917201) and VUT (MSM002163528)). In
these projects, FPGA technology was used for an acceleration of IPv6 protocol
routing, network traffic monitoring, NetFlow statistic measurement and fast
regular expression matching in packet payload. Network devices and probes are
hardware accelerated using FPGA technology, therefore the probes can provide
precise and detailed information about the network no matter of 1Gbps, 10Gbps
and higher speed.

Research interests

Monitoring and security of computer networks

Acceleration of time critical operations, which are used in devices for network infrastructure or devices for network monitoring and security (packet header analysis and extraction, classification of packets, longest prefix match, pattern matching and flow CACHE management)

Design of devices and systems for network infrastructure, security and monitoring